


parvati vs. a very heteronormative yule ball

by pep_and_pretentiousness



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Misogyny, i literally just posted this so my friends could see it don’t be mean, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29915202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pep_and_pretentiousness/pseuds/pep_and_pretentiousness
Summary: Parvati thinks about how her gaze follows Lavender across a room and how her stomach is just a little fluttery when Lavender leans in too close and how she looks at Lavender’s lips instead of her eyes rather often and she knows; she knows, and she thinks that she’s rather fucked after all.
Relationships: Lavender Brown/Parvati Patil
Kudos: 5





	parvati vs. a very heteronormative yule ball

**Author's Note:**

> heyyy! this is a small little short story i wrote about pavender, one of my favourite hp ships! i hope you enjoy, even if it doesn’t exactly make you very happy haha!

_before the ball:_

She spends too much time thinking of which boy to go with. She whispers enough over them with Lavender is the thing, so this shouldn’t be that hard, but it is anyway. Every time she thinks of someone she feels a little uncomfortable, and even though she and Lavender brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm, she can’t decide who she wants to ask, or who she wants to ask her.

And she does get asked. Objectively she’s very pretty—she has smooth skin and a shiny head of dark hair and long lashes and high cheekbones and a bright smile, and four boys in her year along with one in the year above summon the courage to ask her to the ball. She tries to be kind when she says no, even though her instinct is to give them a withering frown, shake her head, and then flounce away. She doesn’t understand this instinct even a little.

And then one day, she briefly entertains the possibility of going with no one at all. She could go with no one, and convince Lavender not to either, and then they could dance together just the two of them because Lavender’s so much better company in a dance than some stupid boy—

She stops suddenly, and feels as if she’s thought something wrong. As if she  _ is  _ wrong. And she knows. Parvati thinks about how her gaze follows Lavender across a room and how her stomach is just a little fluttery when Lavender leans in too close and how she looks at Lavender’s lips instead of her eyes rather often and she knows; she  _knows_ ,  and she thinks that she’s rather fucked after all.

Harry asks her to the Yule Ball the way that Harry does everything: all awkward and determined and grim. She guesses it would be sort of adorable if she didn’t know that he was desperate, and she knows that Seamus is going to be in a strop for weeks if she goes with Dean, so she says  _all right_ and suggests that Ron Weasley takes Padma, who’s probably scared off every boy in the year with just one of her sharp stares.

She dusts her dress robes obsessively, adding glitter to the hems every time she has a spare moment and furtively cutting the neckline when she knows Hermione won’t be around to say something cunty. She and Lavender practice makeup on each other, dissolving into giggles every time one of them messes up, and they practice dancing together to Seamus’s Weird Sisters records, which he lends her in exchange for her History of Magic notes.

The wanting inside her is a special kind of painful.

But she’s excited. At least she’s excited.

_the ball:_

She doesn’t like Harry like that even slightly, she knows—he’s too cagey and quiet and judgemental, and even if he wasn’t, she  _wouldn’t_ like him like that. But she had wanted to dance! She wants to dance, and watching Harry stare at Cho Chang and then Cedric Diggory (what she would give to stare at Dean before she stares at Lavender!) is  _boring_ in addition to being insulting, so she leaves him with a healthy dose of animosity to dance with a boy from Beauxbatons, who actually tries not to stare at her tits even if he doesn’t quite succeed. 

Lavender and Seamus are dancing together. It’s Seamus, of course: Seamus who has probably been staring at Dean half the time and who swings Lavender’s arms the way a brother would a sister’s, so she doesn’t feel hateful, but she’s jealous anyway.

_after the ball:_

After the ball, after a hushed, smug whisper to Lavender (she doesn’t look at her face because she knows that she wants to see jealousy on it), she asks him if he wants to go into a broom cupboard with her. He nods eagerly, and she begs her heart to feel something, anything at all. 

But it doesn’t. It  _won’t_. His scrabbling hands on her chest, in her hair, his tongue shoving into her mouth as she clenches her hand around his neck—they give her a vague, insipid disgust; her disliking of them feels like an afterthought, and that makes it all the worse. She gives him a grinning goodbye and tells him that they should go to Hogsmeade sometime (she doesn’t mind that idea, she thinks—he really is nice), and she is sick sick sick to her stomach.

So she doesn’t have to fake her pale, sweaty face, or her trembling, or the quivering of her lips when she stumbles into the dormitory. Hermione turns around from where she’s sitting on her bed and stands up looking furious—Ron, it must be. Lavender jumps up,  _what’s the matter_ on her tongue, and Parvati shakes her head.

“Sick.” she says hoarsely.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have gone to... _snog_ that boy from Beauxbatons!” Hermione hisses, saying the word “snog” in a hushed, accusing voice that would ordinarily make Parvati snap at her, give her a good flick on the forehead. “Who knows what kind of disease he could have passed on to you?” But as hostile as she looks, her nose, which is suspiciously red, starts to run just slightly. Parvati feels a sudden, short rush of empathy at how they’re both so in love with people so fucking oblivious.

“Hermione, would you ever fuck off?” she replies, more tiredly than anything, and the lack of animosity in her voice actually softens Hermione’s glare into something resembling concern; Parvati turns to Lavender, sure that she’ll start crying if she keeps looking at that expression, but she doesn’t want to look at Lavender either, so at last she turns her eyes to the floor. “I think it was the dancing combined with the food—I shouldn’t have had that second helping of brinjal.” she continues, in a voice that sounds dull to her ears. “I’m gonna be in the loo for a while, I think, so if either of you need to go, go now.”

“Par, did that boy try something with you or something—” Lavender starts fiercely, and Parvati clenches her jaw so tightly that it hurts before she cuts her off.

“ _No_ , Lav.” she snaps. She can’t snap at Hermione, but she can snap at her best friend, apparently. Lavender recoils, probably looking hurt. “It, it was fun, okay? I might be seeing him in Hogsmeade soon—please don’t open your mouth, Granger—”

“I wasn’t going to!” Hermione protests, and her voice is fully concerned now. Parvati squeezes her eyes shut, hoping she looks sick instead of on the verge of tears. “I’m—I’m sorry about Harry, by the way—”

“I had a good time, it’s fine.” she says. It’s not even completely a lie. “Do either of you need to use the loo?”

“ _No_.” they say together. Lavender sounds a little desperate.

“Par.” she says again, in a high-pitched, pleading voice—

“ _I'm sick_ , _Lavender_ !” Parvati shrieks, looking up; for a second she hates Lavender’s round face and her wide, shocked brown eyes, and then once again she loves her so hard it hurts. Both of her roommates stumble back, looking afraid. She gives them a look of disdain and exhales angrily before she strides off to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and spelling the door closed with far more harshness than needed.

She makes sure that she covers her mouth very,  _very_ tightly before she lets herself cry.

**Author's Note:**

> unfortunately, the very heteronormative ball won.


End file.
